Dr. Clement Apaak, Member of Parliament for Builsa South, has chastised Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta for neglecting to appear in Parliament today, Wednesday, June 14, 2023, to answer questions.
According to the member, the Minister was due to appear before the House to answer concerns about the entire cost of implementing free SHS between 2017 and 2021, among other things.
He said that the Minister had continually presented inconsistencies in overall expenditure figures and that he had no idea why.
However, he did not show, and the MP claims that no explanation was given for the Minister’s absence.
Dr. Apaak, a Deputy Ranking Member of Parliament’s Education Committee, repeated that the Finance Minister has demonstrated severe disrespect to the parliament, particularly while replying to questions.
The MP stated that the Minister’s track record in responding to Parliament has been poor since 2017.
Since 2017, he claims, the Minister has never been before the Public Accounts Committee.
He further dismissed the explanation that the Minister’s absence during the time he mentioned could have been due to his involvement in the economic crisis.
He stated that even when there was no crisis, the Minister refused to appear in parliament and answer questions.
To him, the Minister has “a record of simply not giving parliamentary questions the needed attention and response as it is expected of every Minister. We cannot make excuses for him. It was happening before this time and clearly, it is continuing”.
He went on to say that the Majority has always made excuses for the Minister, and when the Minority protested about him not turning up and having no written explanation, the Majority maintained making excuses for him.
Dr. Apaak stated in an interview that the only conclusion was that the minister was still up to his despicable habits of failing to appear before the chamber.
He stated that they can only advocate the leadership and ensure that he arrives, that if the Minority had their way, the Minister would have been removed, and that when the Majority had the option to join them in removing him, they opted to defend him.
He went on to say that because they (the NPP) are in the majority, they are the ones who decide what happens and what does not happen because the minority can just protest and raise all the issues, but we are limited in our power to hold him accountable.
By: Rashid Obodai Provencal/ Rainbowradiponline.com/Ghana
